"Finds his cousin dead!" interrupted Mr. Kettridge.

"So he _says_!" added Jack Young significantly.

"Well, we won't go into that," observed the colonel. "I was going to
make another point. Leaving Darcy out of it, and assuming that he had
left the watch on his table intending to get up in the morning and fix
it, what is to have prevented Mrs. Darcy from coming down to her
store--say, before midnight, after Darcy left her.

"She saw the watch on the table, and, picking it up, may have wound it.
This set in motion the death-dealing mechanism, and her hand may have
been punctured with the poison."

"But, even then," put in Young, as he puffed out another cloud of
smoke, "if the poison from the watch killed her, why would any one
strike her on the head and stab her?"

"That may have occurred just after her hand was punctured by the needle
of the watch," said the detective, "and before the poison had time to
work. It is not instantaneous."

"But who would have struck or stabbed her after that?" asked Mr.
Kettridge. "I mean, of course, leaving Jimmie out, for I don't believe
he did it."

"Could not Singa Phut have done it?" asked Colonel Ashley quietly.

"Singa Phut!" cried both his auditors.

"Yes. Suppose, after he had left the watch to be repaired with young
Darcy, the East Indian happened to think that he had not warned against
winding it up, which a jeweler would be most apt to do after making
repairs. Singa Phut had no reason for wishing harm to Darcy. He may
have come to the store late at night intending to warn him to be
careful."

"Well, assuming that, what next?" asked Jack Young.

"Well, Singa, coming say at eleven o'clock to the jewelry store, finds
Mrs. Darcy there. She has picked up the watch--she must have done
that, for it was in her hand. Singa sees it and fearful of what might
happen he rushes in and tries to take it away from her. She, thinking
him a thief, resists and he, fearful that he will be caught and
arrested as a robber, struggles to get the watch and to make his escape.

"Now remember that he is of excitable nature, that he is a foreigner,
fearful of our laws, and that he knows the deadly nature of the poison
in the watch. Could not he have both struck Mrs. Darcy with the hunter
statue and stabbed her in trying to get away from her? That would
account for the killing."

"But there would have been an alarm--the struggle would have made a
noise," objected Jack Young.

"Yes, but there are not many people passing the store around midnight.
Every one in the place had gone to bed--the sleeping rooms are quite a
distance from the shop. Then, too, very little noise may have been
made. I remember in the Peal case two strong and vigorous men battled
at midnight, one killing the other, in a store on a main street in a
big city. But trolley cars and autos going past drowned all sounds of
the fight. It may have been so in this case."

"Are you going to offer that to the jury to clear Darcy?" asked Mr.
Kettridge.

"I may have to," was the colonel's answer. "How does it sound to you,
gentlemen?"

"Very plausible," admitted Jack Young. "But what about the electric
wires on Darcy's table?"

"They are a problem, I admit. However, though Carroll thinks he can
prove they were arranged deliberately to shock any one who, at the
proper moment, might touch the showcase, yet I think we can prove that
an accidental crossing of perfectly harmless wires to Darcy's lathe
with the city's electric light circuit may have caused the two
accidents. That is a point I have yet to consider. But we have
settled something regarding the watch, anyhow. Now, Jack, I want to
talk to you about Harry King."

"He needs to be talked about," was the response. "I don't say he had
anything to do with the murder--especially not after what you have said
about Singa Phut. But Harry King needs watching."

"I agree with you. You say he and Larch have been looking at a packet
of diamonds?"

"Yes; diamonds wrapped in those little squares of white paper that
jewelers use. Looks like they'd been robbing a gem store."

"You don't know of any diamonds missing from Mrs. Darcy's stock, do
you?" asked the colonel of Mr. Kettridge. "Mr. Young and I talked of
this before but didn't settle it."

"No. But then she may have had a private stock of which Darcy nor I
knew nothing. It is a point worth looking into."

"I agree with you. So stick to Harry, Jack, my boy."


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